Atelier

ATELIER BRÜCKNER conceives and designs narrative architecture and spaces for brands, exhibitions, trade fairs and museums. From content and messages, we develop surprising ideas and create memorable concepts that set international standards.

ARCHITECTURE

Building scenographically means developing architectures that, whether temporary or permanent, are conceptually derived from the content – from the configuration of the shell and the design of the interiors to the actual choice of materials. The built reality becomes a direct reflection, the carrier as it were, of the content or functional conception on which it is based.

The shell and the content are not developed independently of each other but, together, mould stories, messages and ideas to form structural elements that determine the tectonics and texture of the built structure.

Architectures that thus express the content in their design themselves become signs that are manifested and readable.

EXHIBITIONS

Exhibition projects can be based on different intentions and contents. Such projects range from large classical collections of objects of an art or cultural-history museum to presentations of a product, whereby the intention is to establish the exhibition location – the trade fair, the brand centre, the expo – as a vehicle for credible brand communication.

In an exhibition designed with scenographic means, space, light, graphics and sound, as well as media and content correspond to form an intellectual and sensory “Gesamtkunstwerk” (total work of art). A successful exhibition offers authentic and unmediated experiential spaces, telling fascinating stories in which arcane knowledge is made accessible to the visitor.

Scenographically designed exhibitions create proximity to the addressees, turn them into a confidant and witness, enable participation and make them part of the narrated story.

SCENOGRAPHY

Scenography creates form from content, giving the latter meaning and purpose. It generates its staged spaces from ideas, objects and stories in order to finally convey their messages to an audience. Scenography re-contextualises, which makes tangible objects talk and succinctly endows them with relevance for the present.

Irrespective of whether a project involves a building or the presentation of a single object, a collection or brand, scenography is concerned with transformation, the explicit aim of which is to communicate information and ideas. Scenography generates and transforms space and all spatial elements.

Narrative spaces are the most poetic instruments of scenography. They make content into stories and transform them into impressive, sometimes monumental spatial gestures that exert a narrative effect on the observer. In doing so, they convey themes and messages that are immediately and intuitively apparent. Narrative spaces create places where questions are asked, avenues of thought are explored and stories are invented; they can neutralise the statics, materiality and physical limits of a space by completely making the space itself into a narrative event, i.e. the telling of a story.

Methods

Form follows content

“form follows content”, whereby design is no longer to be defined solely according to functional points of view but is to be derived from content, is a consistent further development of Sullivan’s “form follows function” and has become the guiding principle of the scenographic enterprise.

Every project starts with an analysis of content, stories and information. Workable notions, concealed “images” relevant to design and cross-connections in the content are investigated in detail. A common denominator, a golden thread, a “plot” – which forms the basis of any conception – is then defined.

The resulting dramaturgy is translated into space narratively and for the senses with the help of the instruments of design. Content and information become intensively told stories that are absorbed and internalised intuitively and reflexively – or sometimes merely playfully.

Creative Structure

When intuition and intellect pursue a common goal and the methodical use of dramaturgical principles characterise the creative process, when the selection of means is coherent and the translation is consistent, then the conception is well on the way to becoming a surprising, memorable scenography.

The creative process is based on a creative structure that was developed by Uwe R. Brückner and sees itself as an autonomous scenographic methodology. In the Atelier, it is a strategy for the creative process and the work of design, while also serving as a set of instructions and navigation system. It makes it possible to analyse complex projects and their requirements in order to develop a plot, a storyboard and an 'orchestral score', to design a highly stimulating sequence of experiences and coherent narrative spaces, to make the design a reality and to document the result in a way that has utility for everyone involved.

Interdisciplinarity

In order to do full justice to the increasing complexity of architecture and exhibitions, the work in the Atelier is done consistently in interdisciplinary teams.

Wherever people get together around a table and are willing to think outside the box of their profession, are receptive to the views of others and nevertheless remain true to their own knowledge and understanding, it is possible to generate surprising strategies, novel forms of experience and highly effective staged settings.

Architects, graphic designers, scientists, stage directors, product designers and media designers all work together to deliver architectural and exhibition concepts with the aim of creating a “Gesamtkunstwerk” that is more than the sum of its parts and is able to entrance visitors by appealing to all of their senses.

Tools

Interpretation

Interpretation

The analysis and development of content and themes are the beginning of all considerations relating to conceptualisation and design. The intensive exchange of views with clients, scientists, marketing strategists and curators is central to this endeavour. The Atelier works with them shoulder to shoulder to work out messages and statements that will later determine the look of a piece of architecture or the dramaturgy of an exhibition.

The content interpreter embraces a principle coined by Uwe. R. Brückner: "Start thinking from the end". In doing this, he focuses on the recipients and their expectations, on their receptivity, their cognitive capacity and their individual ability to process information. By situating the experience of the visitor in a staged setting, he attempts to do justice to the different types of user behaviour or to individual ways of experiencing.

Space

Space

No other creative discipline possesses such a multi-facetted range of instruments for the design of space as scenography. Scenography instrumentalises the means of architecture, theatre, film and the visual arts in order to design distinctive and effective spatial dramatisations.

Space is the central medium in which, with which and for which the Atelier thinks and designs. Space – whether in the form of a scenographically designed exhibition or a piece of architecture – is itself used as an instrument and can orchestrate all other instruments in the integrated sense of a Gesamtkunstwerk. Four spatial parameters, on which all staged spaces are based, constitute the potential of a space: the physical, atmosphere, narration and dramaturgy.

Each of these spatial parameters refers to a specific quality of the space and, in consonance with the other parameters, makes it possible to access content, get to the bottom of things, ferret out the soul of a theme or get closer to a brand. The interplay of the spatial parameters in a dramaturgically ingenious and stimulating setting in exhibitions and architecture seduces the recipients into accepting the story and its message.

Graphic

Graphics

The most elementary, flexible and possibly oldest set of instruments used in exhibition and museum scenography is provided by graphics. Ever since an interest in staged spaces arose, graphics as an instrument has developed from being a two-dimensional medium to a three-dimensional one. Born on one plane, it is now conquering space.

As a space-generating and space-structuring medium, graphics is elementary. This not only applies to the spatial framework but also to the visualisation of content and stories and their translation into narrative spaces. Graphics can be used to present themes in a spatially abstract setting or, as a space-encompassing supportive element, can bring the space to life by enhancing the content and themes that are presented. Textual spaces, reading spaces, story-telling spaces and even decoding spaces can be created with the help of graphics. Text graphics can make a space talk and transform it into a walk-in narrative instrument that makes stories stick in visitors’ minds or elicits completely new ones.

Graphics play a leading role in the Atelier’s integrative approach to design. From the very beginning, communication designers are conceptually involved in the process of translating and communicating themes and messages in a way that is adequate to the content. And right up to the end, they participate significantly in development and implementation of the overall scenographic look.

Digital Media

Digital Media

In the Atelier, digital media are never used as ends in themselves but always in the service of the message. They enable individualised or participatory, as well as synaesthetic and creative access to objects, knowledge and complex interrelationships.

Here, a fundamental distinction can be made between "media stations" and "space-configuring media". What many digital-media concepts have in common is that they make the recipient into a part of the subject and permanently transfer inaccessible or difficult-to-convey information in such a way that the recipient can literally get inside the information and thus understand it.

Interrelationships can be perceived faster and more completely than ever before given that several information levels can be made available at the same time. The reception of these diverse levels and their cognitive processing as well as the profound understanding and comprehension of a context are much closer together in terms of space and time. It would almost be possible to say that integrative design with digital means enables and indeed ensures a fusion of reception and cognition.

Information on Demand

Information on Demand

The contents of an exhibition can often be seen, experienced and interpreted on several levels intellectually and via the senses. In the Atelier, the "information on demand" strategy developed by Uwe R. Brückner is applied when concepts are being elaborated for media applications that can serve as a second information level and help the visitor to gain access and understand particular themes and messages.

Information-on-demand enables the recipients to decide themselves on when they are given the information, as well as on the type and amount of information that is offered via the media and that they wish to consume. From the differentiated and suitably prepared layers of information, they intuitively pick out the new knowledge they want on the basis of their individual needs and in line with their personal experiential horizon. Due to this individual acquisition and sustained experience of the content, the recipients are each assigned a role that they reinforce as a result of their interaction with the scenography. They thus become participants in the narrated story or in the solution of the problem.

Sound

Sound

As an archaic level of reception for signals produced by noise, sound and music, the sense of hearing – more than all the other senses – appeals to the intuitive, the non-cognitive, and the unconscious in us. Music and sound can directly evoke emotions or influence them. A sound can unexpectedly lift our mood or make us suddenly feel sad. However, what all acoustic formats have in common is that they cannot be seen; they do not supply pre-constructed images but evoke individual internal images in the mind of the listener. As the natural scientist Lorenz Oken aptly put it: "The eye takes a person into the world. The ear brings the world into the person."

Sound has always been one of the instruments of scenography – whether as the intentionally designed sound of a space, as an atmospheric spatial sound, for acoustic explanation of exhibits and exhibition subjects or as a narrative element in the form of an audio drama or play. Sound can become the starting point or the primary supporting element of a designed space or a staged setting and is able to evoke physically accessible spatial installations. Dramatisations and staged spaces can be developed from traditional audio dramas and thus enable a completely new way of grasping and understanding content.

Light

Light

Light used to situate space and architecture as well as narrative spaces and objects effectively in a staged setting is a crucial element of design. Without light, objects cannot be presented three-dimensionally and hidden details remain invisible.

Scenographically-used-light does not only illuminate interrelationships, but also establishes, interprets and comments on them. Moreover, it contributes towards contextualisation of the content and thus performs an essential dramaturgical function. Light significantly shapes the aggregated states of space and narrative spaces, while injecting dynamism into settings with the help of light choreographies and making arranged sequences of spaces plausible and fascinating.

The Atelier’s light concepts are based on the integrative planning of daylight and artificial light according to the latest ergonomic and energy-consumption standards. Artificial light is always deployed and structured on three levels: architectural or spatial light, exhibition light, and stage-setting light. These three levels merge together to determine the tonality, colour and temperature of a space and can fundamentally alter it in the dimension in which the narrative space exerts its effect on the observer.

Project management

Project Management

Architectural and exhibition projects are highly complex. Although they have a concrete beginning and also, when started, a defined project goal, they are often subject to considerable pressure in terms of time and costs. Solid and detailed planning combined with continuous checking and monitoring of the progress made, as well as of the budget and the quality are among the most important tools needed to ensure the success of a project.

In a project, the responsibilities and the areas of competence of each member in the team are always clearly defined. All the threads come together at the project manager interface. The project manager coordinates the work done by clients, the creative team and the specialist planners, while controlling processes and workflows on the organisational and planning level, assigning tasks, defining responsibilities, formulating objectives and time windows, and integrating everyone involved into a shared process of work.

Our maxim is to regard problems as challenges to be overcome and constructively solved with all those involved in the process. After all, in the end, it is only the result that actually counts.

108Employees

27Nations

21Languages

Partners

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Prof. Uwe R. BrücknerCreative Director

Creative Director

On both the national and international level, Uwe R. Brückner is highly esteemed as an opinion leader in the area of exhibition design and planning. He is regarded as an eminent authority and expert on the development of narrative spatial concepts. On the basis of his philosophy of design encapsulated in the phrase "form follows content", he has created more than 100 exhibition sets and experiential environments for museums and corporate brands. His creative aspiration is to use stories and content to form spatial works of art (Gesamtkunstwerke) that get right to the heart of the content and are able to address visitors emotionally and intellectually through all of their senses.

CV - Born in Hersbruck in Bavaria, Uwe R. Brückner studied architecture at the Technische Universität München. After working for several years as a classical architect, he studied stage design at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design under Prof. Jürgen Rose. After completing his studies, he established his own atelier, which became the ATELIER BRÜCKNER in 1997. In addition to his work in the Atelier, Uwe R. Brückner is an active professor, teaching in the area of scenography at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW). As a co-founder of a biennial international scenography festival and speaker at many events, he has a wide variety of contacts in the design industry all over the world.

Shirin Frangoul-BrücknerManaging Director

Managing Director / CEO

Shirin Frangoul-Brückner is the chief executive officer of the Atelier. Apart from being a highly capable architect, she possesses excellent analytical, organisational and communicative skills as well as other special abilities. She knows how to lend impetus to ideas and projects constructively and ambitiously. In accordance with her guiding principle: "making the impossible possible", she guarantees that complex international projects are implemented on the very highest quality level and with the maximum possible effect.

CV - Born in Bagdad in Iraq, Shirin Frangoul-Brückner studied architecture at the universities of Kaiserslautern and Stuttgart. Before she and Uwe R. Brückner established the Atelier 1997, she worked for diverse architects' offices in Stuttgart and Zurich.

Britta NagelConcept Director

Concept Director

Translating content into space and thus awakening the long-term enthusiasm of visitors is Britta Nagel's passion. As a creative designer caught between the occasional conflicting priorities of exhibition, architecture, design and art, she is in charge of concept development in the Atelier and has been significantly responsible for the success of numerous projects. Many of the projects that have won several international awards carry her thumbprint. Britta Nagel has been a partner in the Atelier since 2011.

CV - Born in Waiblingen, Britta Nagel studied architecture at the University of Stuttgart and the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. She works for ATELIER BRÜCKNER since 1999; she received a fellowship from Akademie Schloss Solitude in 2001 and worked as exhibition designer in England in 2006.

Prof. Eberhard SchlagProject Director

Project Director

Eberhard Schlag has more than 20 years experience as a project manager in charge of the development and implementation of ambitious, highly complex national and international projects in the areas of architecture and exhibition design. He is established as an absolute expert with exceptional know-how in this field. Always pursuing the goal of taking the "state of the art" one step further, Eberhard Schlag promotes and supervises planning and technical implementation of the Atelier's projects in all phases of the work involved. In his job as overall project supervisor, he is responsible for quality management and efficient control of all the projects that the Atelier takes on. Eberhard Schlag has been a partner in ATELIER BRÜCKNER since 2008.

CV - Eberhard Schlag was born in Singen and studied architecture at the University of Stuttgart and in the master's programme of the Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago. He has worked at ATELIER BRÜCKNER since 1997. In addition, he has been professor of architecture and design at the department for Architecture and Design at Hochschule Konstanz University of Applied Sciences (HTWG) since 2010.

René WalkenhorstProject Director

Project Director

René Walkenhorst became a partner at ATELIER BRÜCKNER in 2017. As project director he is responsible for the development and navigation of highly complex architecture and exhibition projects all over the world. He has long-term experience in the field of planning and realising premium interior architecture and he understands how to coordinate heterogenous teams consisting of internal and external employees, scientists, specialists and companies in a confident manner. From the first concept to the opening of a project and beyond, he takes his work seriously and places equal importance on the quality of materials, on precise execution as well as on ideal customer service. René Walkenhorst has been a project manager at ATELIER BRÜCKNER since 2005; in 2009 he became an associate.

CV - From 1995 through 2001 René Walkenhorst studied Architecture at the universities of Hanover, Delft and Helsinki. After graduation, he first started working for Prof. Friedrich and Partner Architects in Hamburg and later co-founded 5elf Architekten in Hanover. In 2005, he came to ATELIER BRÜCKNER, where he took over the renovation of the Main Trading Hall of the German Stock Exchange in Frankfurt/Main. As a project manager he was, among others, responsible for the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum in Cologne, the Parlamentarium in Brussels and the exhibition Arabian Journeys at King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture in Dhahran, Saudi-Arabia.